The Millennium Falcon In The Dive
by Baroness Emma
Summary: A tribute to two of the greatest Evil Men in Black ever created. Star Wars/Scarlet Pimpernel Musical crossover songfic. Because it was begging to be written. A fairly good knowledge of either fandom -or both- is suggested, but not required. Vader's POV


For those of you who do not know Chauvelin's song "The Falcon In The Dive" from the Scarlet Pimpernel musical, I have provided this link - http:// www. youtube. com/watch? v=Viam NZWNO9w (as usual, please remove the spaces, then it will work)

For those of you who do not know Darth Vader from the Original Star Wars Trilogy I have provided - well. . . . nothing actually. . . . . . . . . . um. . . . . I'm sorry, but if anyone out there really does not know who he is, then RENT THE DVD'S NOWWWWWW. Please. In the interest of American culture. And my own sanity. :)

The crossover songfic is dedicated to all the wonderful layers inherent in the character of an Evil Man In Black.

Enjoy!

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**The Millennium Falcon In The Dive**

The Millennium Falcon was captured. Black booted feet thoughtfully strode the deck around it.

The man had heard of the Falcon, of course. There were few things that escaped the notice of a Dark Lord of the Sith. But to be aboard the Death Star, and find that the only ship that took any sort of a stand against the destruction of Alderaan was the storied ship whose infamous captain was wanted by every Imperial law enforcer alive, and then to find that it was not only unmanned but now trapped in his docking bay. . . well. . . Darth Vader had not encountered such an irony for a very long time.

But. . . it was very odd. . .

Odd that he should feel NO stirrings from the Force coming from the Falcon at all. Not even that faint but noticeable hum that the Force used to denote droids. Odd that he should think he _ought_ to be able to feel something from this ship. And _very_ odd that he felt as though he were being blocked by a power and a personality stronger than his own.

He had not felt this way in years. Too many years. . .

Not since. . .

Obi-wan. . .

_Hunt for the man,_

_Comb the city, every street, every grate,_

_You put a guard at every gate,_

_Drag him out, shout the moment that you find him!_

Vader reached out into the Dark Side. The hot, metallic taste of it bloomed in his mind, and he took in the Falcon, and the deck surrounding it. The dark power was very good at seeing and swallowing a big or a present threat, but it was less good at finesse and details. It was very difficult for Vader to focus the massive power he had at his call to just this one point. . . to just this ship. . . now. . . and the person. . . people. . . who were aboard it. . . who ought to be aboard it. . .

_Damn!_

Vader's mind control slipped a bit, and the vague outline of lifeforms he had thought he saw for a moment vanished as if they had never been.

Ah well. . . there were other ways.

_Knock in the doors, lock up the city,_

_Track him down, search the town!_

_And be quick about it. . . Now!_

"Send a scanning crew down here at once, Captain," he ordered. "Have them go over every square millimeter of that ship." He looked ominously at the Falcon. If they were hiding, he would find them. "And you will call me immediately if you find _anything_. Do I make myself clear?"

The man assented and ran off to obey.

Vader nodded gravely, and took one last long lingering look at the rusty jumble of a ship before him.

If they were hiding he'd have the Falcon reduced to rubble.

He WOULD triumph this day. . .

But, ironically, the day would not go like Darth Vader wanted at all. . .

~*~

It was indeed Obi-wan that he had felt - or rather NOT felt - aboard the Millennium Falcon, and it had been Obi-wan who somehow slipped past all guards, disabled the tractor holding the Falcon, and then virtually challenged Vader to a duel in order to allow the ship to escape with all occupants safe.

Vader thought back to the last moment of their confrontation, and wondered what exactly was so important that the old man would sacrifice himself that way.

It had _not _been Obi-wan who had engineered the escape of the Princess, nor had it been he who had cause such a disturbance in the Force during that escape.

But, blast it.

It was only Obi-wan that he, Darth Vader, could never beat.

For Obi-wan was not beaten. He was dead, but not beaten. That feeling Vader had not felt for so long had not gone away when his red, glowing lightsaber had cut down his old teacher.

Somehow, the old man's spirit had remained. And with it still present, he, Darth Vader, was nothing and no one more than Anakin Skywalker - alone, friendless, and utterly without guidance.

Blast it.

_How the devil do I ever prevail when I'm only a man?_

_But I'll never be duped by that scurrilous phantom again. . ._

At least Obi-wan was _gone_. Formless and invisible, at least Vader could now truthfully say that the Jedi were dead. The Emperor would be pleased about that. But about losing the Princess and that. . . other one. . . Vader almost sighed. The Emperor was not a patient man.

_I wasn't born to walk on water_

_I wasn't born to sack and slaughter_

_But on my soul, I wasn't born_

_To stoop to scorn, and knuckle under._

"Send two wing pairs after them," he growled at the deck officer, and of course the deck officer obeyed. The orders of a Dark Lord were always obeyed. He obeyed even though he doubted that four TIE fighters were force enough to stop a Corellian light freighter which was already out of the range of the Death Star's other tractor beams.

Vader smirked under his face mask. That was all right. The TIEs were not meant to _stop_ the small ship, just give the occupants the illusion that they were, indeed, escaping.

But Vader had a much more interesting plan in mind. . .

_A man can learn to steal some thunder._

Earlier, he had secretly ordered a tracking device installed in the Falcon, and it was homing. . . Even that very strange, but very strong presence he could now detect on the target ship was not aware of the tracking device.

_A man can learn to work some wonder._

The day was turning out not so badly after all.

_And when the gauntlet's down,_

_It's time to rise and climb the sky,_

_And soon the moon will smoulder,_

_And the winds will drive,_

_Yes, a man grows older but his soul remains alive,_

_All those tremulous stars still glitter -  
_

_And I will survive!_

Soon now. . . he would crush this Rebellion - crush it with his own fist if need be. . .

Now.

He looked at the homing beacon's signal, and the long list of possible destinations ran down, smaller and smaller, until there was one name of one system and one planet that corresponded with the Falcon's hyperspace vector.

"Set co-ordinates," he rumbled to the hyperspace officer, "For the fifth moon of Yavin. Maximum speed."

_Let my heart grow colder, and as bitter as a falcon in the dive._

Soon. . . soon the Universe would lay open to him. . . ripe for the picking. . .

_There was a dream, a dying ember._

Soon. . . soon. . . soon he would awake from the pain; the pain that was as much a part of him as his own mind now - so much so that he had forgotten what it was like to be a man.

_There was a dream, I don't remember_.

There had been another way once. . . another person who was himself. Odd that the old him no longer mattered. Only his life now - his ambitions now - that was what was important. But. . . the old him had wanted power. . . and still he wanted power.

It was all he lived for now. . .

_But I will resurrect that dream_

_Though rivers stream and hills grow steeper!_

Vader took several private turbolifts to his special secondary bridge.

_For here in hell where life gets cheaper._

Here, he could - would! - watch the destruction of the Rebellion.

_Oh, here in hell the blood runs deeper._

Here he would witness the end of this puny conflict and go forward into the grand place that Galaxy would hold open to him.

_And when the final duel is near_

_I'll lift my spear and fly_

But. . . . . he was restless in his commander's chair, the many hours of travel grating hard against the quick, fiery impulses of his mind. The Death Star was so _slow_. She could only manage .3 past lightspeed, and they were already pushing the engines to the limit. Vader's left hand twitched - the desire to be controlling a fighter's helm, to be aboard something _small_, swift and deadly. . . it became too much.

By all the ghosts of the Sith, he was a _pilot_. . . and you do not put a pilot in a commander's chair and ask him to passively await victory.

No.

You give him a fighter, and he sheds the blood of triumph with his own hand.

_Piercing into the sky and higher,_

_And the strong will thrive!_

There was a _reason_ why he was the Empire greatest ace.

_Yes, the weak will cower while the fittest will survive._

He commed his private docking bay and ordered his Interceptor readied for battle.

_If we wait for the darkest hour,_

_Till we spring alive!_

He would see to the Rebellion's destruction himself - one on one - face-to-face. Like he had done with Obi-wan.

But this time he would win.

_Then with claws of fire, we devour like a falcon in the dive._

~*~

They were actually _attacking_. . . .

Vader could hardly contain his glee. He had hoped that the Rebel base would not simply stand still and succumb to the forces he commanded. He wanted to make them cower with fear, and turn and fight with that desperation that comes only with the sight of certain defeat, for it was only the enemy that _knew_ he was going to die that was worth the killing.

The small fleet of Y-wings and X-wings hurtled toward the Death Star. Behind his mask, Vader smiled.

He lived for days like this.

_These are the days! Yes!_

_Days of glory, days of rage, and the dream,_

_And the dream of Paris preys on my bones,_

_Gnawing night and day - clawing through my brain and -  
_

_Never kneel! Never bend! _

The battle raged. Vader's two wingmen kept precisely on his flanks, leaving his firing range open. He had cut a swath from the Death Star's equator all the way to the pole - fighters had dissolved before him, and he saw and felt the resolve of the Rebel forces begin to waver.

Vader settled in for a run along the north pole trench - a target that already two sets of Rebel fighters had mysteriously focused on - and had been quite efficiently destroyed for their efforts.

Now, a third group was making the same run.

Vader reset his hands on the pilot's yoke. He would put an end to this once and for all.

He reached into the Dark Side and aimed his lasers. . . .

_Rend him to bits! Bite!_

One X-wing died without effort. The second was damaged and pulled away.

The third. . . .

Somehow he did not want to kill the third.

He touched the mind within the cockpit, and suddenly he felt a broadening, an expanding of his mind that he had not felt in years. He saw in his mind's eye the whole of the battle, felt all the conflict and pain and death and triumph and life - for a moment it was a panorama of existence, a pure work of art. . .

_Now, the beauty of the fight!_

Pilots. . .

Somehow he mourned the loss of so many pilots. . .

_I am not a man to hunger for blood, but the spirit can cry,_

_To be younger and fiercer and fly!_

_Piercing into the sky and higher,_

His TIE dove again, twisting through a sinewave turn that any other human being would have been crushed by, even with inertial compensators, and then he was on the tail of that third X-wing.

It was in his sights. . . he had a target lock. . .

_And the strong will thrive_

_Yes, the weak will cower while the fittest will survive._

And then. . . . it was _impossible_. . . but it happened so very _quickly_. . . the unforgettable form of the Millennium Falcon cut sharply across his flightpath, impacting his starboard solar panel and batting him out of the fight as though he were no more than a Togorian dewfly.

The TIE Interceptor shuddered, twisted metal screeching through the night of space.

Vader felt the edges of his consciousness succumbing to a Dark Side trance. His mind would shut down to save itself from the crushing forces of inertia. He felt the darkness beginning, and the spinning TIE would not respond . . .

Then, magically, with no warning at all, a bloom of light went off in him, and the TIE evened out without him even having to touch the controls. Still, he knew the backlash of this would knock him cold for some hours and he shook his head to try and dispel the black cloud that continued to encroach on his mind. But he could not - it was not the same darkness anymore. . . it was a glowing darkness, a kindly darkness, a gentle and guiding hand that he had not felt since. . .

"Be at peace, my old student. . . ." a soft voice from. . . . somewhere. . . . said gently, "Sleep. . . . . ."

Vader's TIE swung slowly around, and the last thing he saw was the Millennium Falcon and the last of the X-wings, twisting and pulling away from the suddenly incandescent Death Star. The Millennium Falcon. . . and the X-wing that held that other presence. . . that young presence. . . so _alive_. . .

_If we wait for the darkest hour_

_Till we spring alive!_

The Falcon darted out the plane of the ecliptic, passing magnificently across Vader's line of vision. . .

If only he could be free and alive like that again. . .

_Then with claws of fire, we devour like a falcon in the dive._

Oh, to be like the Falcon in the dive. . .

He blacked out.

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